International Conference on Wireless Algorithms, Systems and Applications

Deploying Mobile Nodes to Connect Wireless Sensor Networks Using Novel Algorithms
ChangWuYu,ElvisChen,andChun-ChengFang Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering Chung Hua University, Taiwan, R.O.C. cwyu@chu.edu.tw Abstract
Wireless sensor networks receive lots of attention due to its promising techniques and wide-ranging applications in recent years. The kind of network occasionally becomes disconnected due to initial uneven deployments or unpredictable failures or run out of battery of sensor nodes. However, sensor nodes with mobility then can be used in an addition deployment to reconnect the disconnected sensor networks. Theoretically, the augmenting geometric graph problem is defined here to model this kind of connectivity issues. The work proposes two novel algorithms: the graph-oriented algorithm and the divide-and-conquer algorithm to connect disconnected networks by using as less as possible mobile nodes. The first algorithm highly exploits traditional graph and geometry techniques including Fermat point, convex hull, nearest neighbor, minimum cost spanning tree, and graph contraction. Adopting a quite different approach, the second algorithm resolves the problem by dividing the deployed area and merging sub-solutions recursively. With respect to complexity issue, the graph-oriented algorithm takes O(n3) time; on the other hand, the divide-and-conquer algorithm requires O(n log n) time, where n is the size of vertex set of the given graph G=(V, E). These proposed two algorithms have low time complexity and can be implemented in a centralized sensor network. Keywords: Mobile sensor networks, network connectivity, minimum cost spanning tree processdata andcommunicate with othernodes in short distance [16]. Wireless sensor networks can be used for many application areas including health care [1], military [2], monitoring [2], etc. For example, on health care, we can place sensor nodes on devices or clothes to monitor the health state of patients or elders or children. On military, we can deploy sensor nodes on the battle field to sense the motivation of enemies. On monitoring, we also can deploy sensor nodes in a building for securityissues. Wireless sensor networks occasionally become disconnected due to initial uneven or random deployments or unpredictable failures or run out of battery of sensor nodes. Figure 1 shows an example of a disconnected network consists of six disjointconnectedsub-networks.

Figure1.Sixdisconnectedsub-networks. Additional deployment of mobile sensor nodes then can reconnect the disconnected sensor networks, which become a critical issue in wireless sensor networks. Theoretically, the above problem can be modeled as a new graph problem described as follows. Ageometric graph G=(V, r) 2 consists of nodes placed in 2-dimension space R and edge set E={(i, j)d(i, j)r, where i, jV and d(i, j)denotestheEuclidiandistancebetweennode i and node j }. Given a disconnected geometric graph, the augmenting geometric graph problem (AGGP) is adding the minimum number of nodes V such that the resulting graph G=(VV, r) is connected. The connectivity number of G, written k(G), is the minimum size of a vertex set S such that G- S is disconnected or has only one vertex. A graph G is k c - onnected if its connectivity is at least k. In other words, the AGGP is aimed at

Introduction

Wireless sensor networks receive lots of attention due to its promising techniques and wide-ranging applications in recent years. This kind of network consists of large number of low-cost, low-power , small-size, and multifunction sensor nodes which can sense and

0-7695-2981-X/07 $25.00 2007 IEEE DOI 10.1109/WASA.2007.31

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increasing the connectivity number from 0 to 1 by adding the minimum number of new nodes. The AGGP has been formulated to a generalized Steiner minimum tree problem and shown to be NP-hard [24]. Thus, some approximation and heuristicalgorithmshavebeendesignedforAGGP [21-24]. In this paper, we propose two novel algorithms: the graph-oriented algorithm and the divide-and-conquer algorithm to connect disconnectednetworksbyusingaslessaspossible mobile nodes. The first algorithm highly exploits traditional graph and geometry techniques including Fermat point, convex hull, nearest neighbor, minimum cost spanning tree, and graph contraction. Adopting a quite different approach, the second algorithm resolves the problem by dividing the deployed area and merging sub-solutions recursively. The graph-oriented algorithm takes O (n3) time; on the other hand, the divide-and-conquer algorithm requires O(n log n) time, where n is the size of vertex set of the given graph G=(V, E). These proposed two algorithms have low time complexity and can be implementedinacentralizedsensornetwork. The rest of the paper is organized as follows. The next section presents related work, followed by some definitions and preliminaries used in Section 3. The two algorithms proposed are described in detail in Section 4. Finally, Section 5 concludesthispaper.

thelifetimeofnetworksignificantly. In [5], Hellbrck and Fischer presented the MINE concept to maintain the connectivity of sensornetwork.Theyhadproposedaprotocolthat uses mobile nodes to maintain the network connectivity. However, they do not mention how to reduce the number of needed mobile nodes that isusedtoconnectthedisconnectnetworks.

Preliminary

In a planar space, a point is called the Fermat point ifitminimizesthesumofthedistancesfrom the point to every vertex of a triangle [19]. The Fermat point can be constructed (on the outside of the triangle) by drawing two equilateral triangles on two side of the triangle and connecting the opposite vertices of the original triangle and the created equilateral vertices, where an equilateral triangle is a triangle with all three sides of equal length.Note that the twodiagonals intersectin the Fermat point (Figure 2). If there is an interior angle of this triangle is greater than 120 degree, the Fermat point is exactly the vertex with the angle>=120degree(Figure3).

Figure2. TheFermatpointofatriangle.

Related work

Lin and Xue [24] have shown the AGGP is NP-hardandgavea5-approximationalgorithm.In [23], Chen et al. showed that Lin and Xues algorithm has performance ration exactly 4, and they also proposed a O(n4)-time approximation algorithmwithratioatmost3.In[20],Cheng et al. proposed a O(n3)-time approximation with performance ratio at most 3, and a randomized approximation with performance ratio at most 5/2. Recently, Chang and Jan have proposed a O(n2)-timeheuristicalgorithmfortheAGGP[21]. The AGGP is quite similar to the group Steiner tree problem:Givenaundirectedgraph G=( V, E), anonemptysubset N=(N1, N2, N3,...,N k)andN V, findatreeT G(N)spanningatleastonevertexfrom Ni, for i = 1 to k, while minimizing the sum of the corresponding edge costs. This problem had been provedasaNP-h ardproblem[14]. Rengarajan et al. [4] considered how to connect sub-networks with power control. They try to change the communication radius of sensor nodes to connect with other nodes. Since the energy of sensor nodes is limited, the approach will shorten

Figure3. TheFermatpointofatrianglewithan interioranglegreaterthan120degree. A simple polygon is convex if, given any two points in the polygon (in boundary or interior), all points on the line segment between them are contained in the polygon. The convex hull of a set of points is the smallest convex polygon containingthem(Figure4).

Figure4.Aconvexhull A graph G=(V, E)consistsofafinitenonempty vertex set V and edge set E of unordered pairs of distinct vertices of V. A connected graph means thatanyvertexofthegraphhasatleastonepathto any other vertex. Otherwise, it is disconnected. A connected component means that the biggest connected sub-graph of a graph. A tree is a connectedgraphwithoutcloseloops(orcycles).A minimum cost spanning treeis a tree thatconnects all nodes in a connected and weighted graph with

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theminimumcost. An edge e of G is said to be contracted if it is deleted and its ends are identified. A subgraph of G is said to be contracted if all its edges are contracted successively in any order. Some graph definitions and notations given here can be found in[15].

Novel deploying algorithms

In this work, we assume that each node equipped with a GPS device and always know its own position information. All nodes in the same connected subnetwo rk also can find each other by elementary broadcasting method. We also assume that there exists at least one node, named network head, in each connected subnetwork so that the node can transmit the position information of every node in the connect ed subnetwork to a designated process serv er. After computing and analyzing the position information of the whole network,theserverwillcommandmobilenodesto movetoconnectalldisconnectedsub-networks.In the following subsections, we will propose two algorithms including the graph-oriented algorithm and the divide-and-conquer algorithm for deploying mobile sensor nodes so that the resultingnetworkisconnected. 4.1 The graph-oriented algorithm Given a disconnected sensor network N with its corresponding geometry graph G=(V, E), the first stepisfindingouttheconnectedcomponentsof G. By the definition of geometry graph, we then can represent each mobile node by using a point in a plane. Next, the algorithm finds out the point sets each of which represents the corresponding nodes of each sub-network, and then determines the corresponding convex hull of each point set (as showninFigure5).

thatintheconvexhull(Figure5),wecanfocuson nodes on convex hull but ignore that in a convex hull in determining where additional nodes should bedeployedtoconnectthewholenetwork. The remaining effort is devoted to connecting all these polygons (represe nting the subnetworks) by using the least number of mobile nodes. Thus, the next step tries to find such connections between every two different subnetworks. The most straightforward way is finding a shortest straight line between two polygons in the plane initially although there might exists no such direct communication; latter, our protocol will replace suchstraightlinebyliningacoupleofnodesup. For example, given a straight line with length l between two nodes with communication radius r, wemaydeploy l/rnodesbetweenthemtoforma communicationpath.Wecanrepresentthiskindof distances between polygons by using a complete graph, called supergraph G=(V, E), such that each polygon is represented as a vertex v in V and the shortest distance between two polygons vertices as the weight of the corresponding edge e in E, even when two convex hu lls contain or intersect eachother.Anexampleis showninFigure6.

Figure6.Thesupergraph G. The protocol connects these polygons by finding a minimum cost spanning tree T on the aboveweightedsupergraph G(Figure7).

Figure7.Theminimumcostspanningtree. The cost (i.e. the number of required mobile nodes) may be reduced furthermore by using Fermat point technique on T. First we find any internalnode t1inT withtheminimumdegree(e.g. the minimum degree of internal nodes in T is 2 in Figure8).

Figure5.Findingconvexhullsforeachconnected components. The obtained convex hull is the small size of convex polygon which contains every points of the subnetwork. Roughly, each subnetwork can be viewed as a polygon (i.e. the constructed convex hull). Note that every once in a while two polygons may intersection each other or one is contained in another one. Since the nodes on the convex hull is closer to other subnetworks than

Figure8.Selectinganinternalnode.

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When the degree of the selected node is two, our protocol constructs a triangle abc with the minimum sum of three sides where a, b, and c are nodes selected from three different convex hulls containing nodes a, b, and c, respectively. Next, the Fermat point F of the triangle abc is computedasshowninFigure9.

idea behind the algorithm step is merging small andnearsubnetworksfirst.

w1

w3

w2

Figure11.TheFermatpointofthreesubnetworks. The algorithmic form of the graph-oriented algorithmisdescribedasfollows: Thegraph-orientedalgorithm. Input: A disconnected sensor network N with its correspondinggeometrygraphG =(V,E ). Output: A set of additional nodes such that the resultingsensornetworkisconnected. Step 1: Determine whether the given network is connectedornot. Step 2: If the given network is not connect, then identify all maximal connected subnetwork and find its convex hull and remove all nodes in its convexhull,foreveryconnectedsub-network. Step 3: For every two different convex hulls, find a single vertex in each convex hull such that the shortest distance betwee n them is minimized. Construct a supergraph G*=(V*, E*), such that each convex hull (polygon) is represented as a vertex v in V * and the shortest distance between two polygons vertices as the weight of the correspondingedge ein E*. Step 4: Find a minimum cost spanning tree T in G *. Step5:When| T|>=2,findanyinternalnode vof T with the minimum degree. Otherwise, the algorithmterminates. Step6:Ifd (v)=k>2andtheneighboringnodesofv are { v0, v1,,v k-1 }, which are arranged clockwise in the plane, then select an integer i such that w i wi is the weight mod k+wi+1mod k is minimized where ofedge(v ,v i)in G*,for0 ik-1. Step 7: Constructs a triangle abc with the minimum sum of three sides where a, b, and c are nodes selected from three different convex hulls representedby v,v imodk ,and vi+1mod k. Step8:FindtheFermatpoint Fof abc. Step 9: If w 1/r + w2/r|aF|/r + |bF|/r +|cF|/r then deploy w 1/r + w2/r nodes to connect the corresponding subnetwork of v to that v of vimodk , and the corresponding subnetwork of to that of v i+1 mod k . Otherwise, deploy |aF|/r +|bF|/r+ |cF|/rnodestoconnecta toFand b to Fand c to Frespectively. Step10:Contractthesubgraphformedby v, vimod k, and vi+1modk in T and construct the corresponding

Figure9.Whenthedegreeoftheselectednodeis two,ourprotocolconstructsatriangle abcwith theminimumsumofthreesides. The number of nodes to fulfill the original two lines is w 1/r + w2/r, where w1 and w2 are the shortest distance between the selected convex hull and its two neighboring convex hulls; on the other hand, the number of nodes for connecting the Fermat point by using three lines is |aF|/r +|bF|/r + |cF|/r. The protocolwill always select the least number of nodes to connect the corresponding three subnetworks. Specifically, if w1/r + w2/r|aF|/r + |bF|/r + |cF|/r, we connect the original tw o lines. Otherwise, we connect a, b, and c to F at the same time. These three subnetworks then merge into a larger network, and the protocol also construct the convex hull of the new network to replace their originalconvexhullsasshowninFigure10.

Figure10.Threesubnetwo rksmergeintoalarger networkandanewconvexhulliscreated. Finally, these three nod es in original tree structure T are contracted into a new node to generate another new tree. The graph-oriented algorithm connects all subnetworks by iterating the above steps similarly until the resulting tree is shrunkintoasinglenode. Supposethatthedegree koftheselectednodeinT is greater than or equal to three and their associated weights are { w1, w2, , w k=w0} which are arranged clockwise, the graph-oriented algorithm will select two consecutive edges with the minimum sum of weights ( i.e. Min { wi+wi+1} for i=1 to k .) for constructing a Fermat point and further shrinking process (Figure 11). The basic

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convexhullofthenew connectedsubnetwork. Step11:GotoStep5. Evidently, the above al gorithm connects all disconnected subnetworksbydeploying additional nodes. The execution time of the algorithm is listedinthenexttheorem. Theorem 1: The graph-oriented algorithm takes O(n3) time, where n is the size of vertex set of the givengraphG =(V, E).

4.2 The Divided-and-Conquer Algorithm

The second algorithm exploits the divide-and-conquer paradigm. Initially, the deployed area is organized in a grid pattern consisting of 2 r2r unit squares, where r is the transmissionradiusofsensornodes.Forsimplicity, we assume there are 2 k2k squares arranged in 2 k rowsand2 kcolumns. The skeleton of the divide-and-conquer algorithmisdescribedasfollows: Input: A disconnected sensor network N with its correspondinggeometrygraphG =(V,E ). Output: A set of additional nodes such that the resultingsensornetworkisconnected. The dividing step: Divides the deployed area into quarters(asshowninFigure12). Theconqueringstep:Ifeachquarterisbiggerthan a 2 r2r square, call the divide-and-conquer algorithmrecursively. Wh en the quarter is a 2 r2r square, determine whether the whole network is connected or not. If the whole network is not connected, deploy the minimum number of additionalnodestoconnectthewholenetwork. The merging step: Merge the four connected subnetworks in four quarters into a larger connected network by deploying additional numberofnodes.

center subnetworks (as shown in Figure 13(a)) to reachourgoal. Case2: l=2. If there are two nodes whose distance is greater than 2r and located in different subnetworks, then they must be located in oppositecornersofthesquare.Inthiscase,wecan deploy two new nodes along the diagonal of the square as shown in Figure 13(b) or near the boundariesofthatasshowninFigure13(c). Case3: l=3. If there are four nodes belonging to different subnetworks and located in the four corners of the square, we can line up three new nodesasshowninFigure13(d). Case4: l=4. In worst case, we deploy at most four nodes as shown in Figure 13(e) to connect all othernodesinthesquare

Figure13.Therearefourway stoconnectnodesin asquare. The last step, Merging S tep, merges four obtained connected subnet works into to one by deploying new nodes. From each of four subnetworks, our algorithm first selects three extreme nodes which are cl osest to the center of the bigger square as shown in Figure 14. We require finding out three straight lines with minimum sum of lengths to connect these four subnetworksasdepictedinFigure15.

Figure12.Thedivide-and-conqueralgorithm dividesthedeployedareaintofourquarters recursively. More detailed descriptions of Conquering Step and Merging Step are described as follows. ConqueringStepdeploys lnodesina2 r2rsquare to connect disconnected subnetworks. Note that we will conclude that 1 l4 according to the followingfourcases anddiscussions. Case1: l=1. If there is a node in the square such that the shortest distance from each subnetwork to the center of the square is shorter than r, then we can deploy only one node at the

Figure14.Sel ectingthreeextrem enodeswhich areclosesttothecenterofbiggersquare.

Figure15.Fin dingoutthreestrai ghtlineswith minimumsumoflengthstoconnectthewhole network.

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Theorem 2: The d ivide-and- conquer algorithm requires O(nlog n)time.

Conclusions

[9]

This work presents two algorithms to connect the disconnected wireless sensor networks by using additional mobile sensor networks as less as possible. The graph-oriented algorithm is more complicated than the divided-and-conquer algorithm but requires less mobile nodes especially when the node density is sparse. In future, it is interesting to design a more efficient algorithm than the graph-oriented algorithm deserves further consideration. Moreover, it is believed that the techniques exploited in this work can be applied to coverage problems of sensornetworks.

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